Villa Palagonia — Bagheria (in treno)

The story

The villa was begun in 1715 by Ferdinando Francesco Gravina, prince of Palagonia, to a design by Tommaso Maria Napoli, among the first of the villas that Palermo’s aristocracy built at Bagheria for the summer season.

Its fame, however, is owed to his grandson Francesco Ferdinando, who from 1749 populated the boundary walls with tufa statues of monsters, dwarfs, musicians, fantastic animals and deformed figures: hence the name “villa dei mostri”. Inside, the hall of mirrors has a ceiling entirely covered with mirrors and walls of painted marble.

Goethe visited in 1787 and wrote about it with irritation in his Italian Journey, unintentionally adding to its celebrity. Of the hundreds of original statues, around sixty remain today.

Why it is worth it

The monsters on the walls really are strange: double heads, impossible bodies, unsettling smiles worn by time, and the longer you look the more you wonder what the prince had in mind. Then you enter the hall of mirrors and see yourself multiplied in a fractured ceiling, in a slightly melancholy light. It is a place that mixes beauty and decay, and it stays with you.